the whole fight was against the man and not upon the
platform?"[536]

[Footnote 536: _Ibid._, p. 456.]

These personalities served to deepen the exasperation of the sections.
The real strain was to come, and there was great need that cool heads
and impersonal argument should prevail over misrepresentation and
passion. But the coming event threw its shadow before it.

CHAPTER XXI

SEWARD DEFEATED AT CHICAGO

1860

The Republican national convention met at Chicago on May 16. It was
the prototype of the modern convention. In 1856, an ordinary hall in
Philadelphia, with a seating capacity of two thousand, sufficed to
accommodate delegates and spectators, but in 1860 the large building,
called a "wigwam," specially erected for the occasion and capable of
holding ten thousand, could not receive one-half the people seeking
admission, while marching clubs, bands of music, and spacious
headquarters for state delegations, marked the new order of things. As
usual in later years, New York made an imposing demonstration. The
friends of Seward took an entire hotel, and an organised, well-drilled
body of men from New York City, under the lead of Tom Hyer, a noted
pugilist, headed by a gaily uniformed band, paraded the streets amidst
admiring crowds. For the first time, too, office-seekers were present
in force at a Republican convention; and, to show their devotion, they
packed hotel corridors and the convention hall itself with bodies of
men who vociferously cheered every mention of their candidate's name.
Such tactics are well understood and expected nowadays, but in 1860
they were unique.

The convention, consisting of 466 delegates, represented one southern,
five border, and eighteen free States. "As long as conventions shall
be held," wrote Horace Greeley, "I believe no abler, wiser, more
unselfish body of delegates will ever be assembled than that which met
at Chicago."[537] Governor Morgan, as chairman of the Republican
national committee, called the convention to order, presenting David
Wilmot, author of the famous proviso, for temporary chairman. George
Ashmun of Massachusetts, the favourite friend of Webster, became
permanent president. The platform, adopted by a unanimous vote on the
second day, denounced the Harper's Ferry invasion "as among the
gravest of crimes;" declared the doctrine of popular sovereignty "a
deception and fraud;" condemned the attempt of President Buchanan to
force the Lecompton Cons